If Not Wisely
by arianna99
Summary: Ianto keeps count. He hardly knows why--it’s not like it matters, it’s not like Jack cares, it’s not like he wouldn’t sound like a creepy stalker if he were to say something like, “I remember our seventeenth kiss. It was in the archives.” J/I slash
1. Chapter 1

**Title: **If Not Wisely

**Fandom/Pairing: **Torchwood, Jack/Ianto

**Rating: **NC-17

**Disclaimer: **BBC & RTD; Title is Joss Whedon's, random references are not mine either

**Summary: **Ianto keeps count. He hardly knows why--it's not like it matters, it's not like Jack cares, it's not like he wouldn't sound like a creepy stalker if he were to say something like, "I remember our seventeenth kiss. It was in the archives."

Act I

Ianto keeps count. He hardly knows why--it's not like it matters, it's not like Jack cares, it's not like he wouldn't sound like a creepy stalker if he were to say something like, "I remember our seventeenth kiss. It was in the archives."

The first time was hardly a kiss. The first time was the barest brush of Jack's lips over his. It followed what Ianto thought of as kiss zero- the warehouse, the feel of Jack's exhale on his lips, the ghost of a touch that left Ianto with a burning curiosity as to how the real thing would feel.

It was after Ianto's first day of work. He was surveying the newly cleaned-up tourist office--it had been a disaster area and a miserable excuse for a cover story; it was no wonder all of Cardiff knew about Torchwood. He'd removed the alien artifacts from behind the counter, though, and gotten rid of the pizza boxes and the containers of decaying Chinese food. The pamphlets appeared to have last been updated in 1999, but Ianto had ordered new ones. He would brave the archives tomorrow, and maybe there would be a place for Lisa somewhere there.

Right now, he needed to go home. She'd be needing her medication.

"Hey, Ianto," Jack said.

Ianto started.

Jack chuckled. "Love what you've done with the place."

"Yes, well," Ianto said, "using real air freshener instead of green, fuzzy Mushu chicken will do that."

"Thanks for the tip," Jack said, coming ever closer, "I'll keep it mind the next time I redecorate."

Ianto's lips twitched in a smile--he liked Jack, despite all, with his broad American personality and larger than life presence. He was mysterious and compelling; he exuded a sort of sexuality that made you want nothing more than to reach over and acquiesce to his constant invitation, and he was…

…right in front of Ianto, the whisper of his pale blue sleeve against Ianto's suit, so close up against him that Ianto could feel the heat of Jack's body though they were barely touching, just in two places, the brush of their arms together and the slight touch of Jack's leg against the outside of Ianto's knee, but he could _feel _Jack all the same.

Ianto could hardly breathe.

Jack smiled, ferally.

"I…I think that's harassment, sir," Ianto said, his voice sounding odd around his dry throat, strangely breathy.

Jack leaned forward the scant inch between them and brushed their lips together for no more than a few seconds, but Ianto still gasped when they separated, aware that he was just as hard against Jack's hip as Jack was against his. He stepped back abruptly.

"Tease," Jack grinned.

"Harassment," Ianto shot back, guilt sprouting in the back of his mind. He'd been the first to flirt, after all.

"Go home, Ianto," Jack said unexpectedly. "Good work today."

Ianto nodded at him and headed for the door.

"See you tomorrow," Jack called after him.

"Yep," Ianto called back for lack of a better answer. He waited till he was in his car for the breakdown; banging your head against the steering wheel didn't work if you didn't have a steering wheel on you.

_Lisa._

-

Their second kiss was only a few days later. Ianto had just moved Lisa into the basement, so his tension level was, understandably, high. He was compensating--he knew he was--by feeding Jack extra cookies and the food from the good curry place downtown and using the special coffee beans he kept hidden behind the cat food Myfanwy sometimes liked and cleaning up even more than usual, being useful and quiet and helpful and Reginald fucking Jeeves.

Jack came up to him sometime around midnight, grasped the lapels of his suit jacket, kissed him briefly, thoroughly, and said, "Go home, Ianto. You've done enough."

-

The third kiss was a full-on snog. It was the aftermath of an emergency-showdown-no-holds-barred-guns-blazing Torchwood thing, and they'd all come out alive and, well, surfing the adrenaline wave.

The other three had gone for drinks, but any idiot could read in Suzie and Owen's body language that they'd be leaving Tosh behind before long.

Ianto was full of nervous energy, the rush still surging through his veins, but there was no outlet in sight, besides energetic cleaning.

Until he found Owen's handgun in the conference room, with the safety catch off and fully loaded. The prick really needed to start using his brain.

The gun felt familiar in his hand, heavy, and Ianto realized it'd been a long time since he'd practiced the skills that had been so hard won in the Torchwood training program.

He took the gun- fair game, he considered, though he'd have to think of another excuse if Owen asked-=and went down to the shooting range.

A few bullets in appropriate targets felt better than he'd remembered, the trigger squeezing and releasing under his fingers more power than he'd held since Canary Wharf.

When the last bullet had shot the last target, Jack stepped out of the shadows, wolf-whistling.

To his credit, Ianto didn't jump.

"If I'd known you could do that, I may have hired you sooner," Jack said.

"Or you may not have hired me at all," Ianto countered. "Not a chance I was willing to take."

Jack shook his head. "Someday, you're gonna lose the mysterious attitude. I bet it'd do wonders for you tension levels." Jack massaged Ianto's shoulders lightly, which was, as usual, a complete disregard of personal space, and if it hadn't felt so good, Ianto might've cared.

"Gets under your skin, doesn't it?" Jack asked quietly, and Ianto could feel Jack's breath on his neck. "The excitement, the endorphins…" his hands slid up Ianto's arms, "Makes you need…release…" he licked up Ianto's neck and Ianto groaned.

Jack's grip on his arms suddenly tightened, strong and sure and then Ianto's back was against the wall and Jack's tongue was in his mouth and it felt so good, so right, and his leg was hooking around Jack's as they kissed, hips rocking together till Ianto wanted so badly he thought he'd explode.

And then Jack stepped back just a bit, let Ianto's legs slide to the floor, ended the kiss with one last brush of his tongue against Ianto's.

"Someday," Jack said hoarsely, a hint of threat and a boatload of desire in his voice, "I'm going to figure out what exactly you want."

And then he actually bloody turned around and stalked off.

Ianto waited until he was well out of sight to give in to the weakness in his knees and slide to the ground, head spinning with lust and confusion and desperation and anger and more lust.

-

Jack played a mean game of hunter and prey. If Ianto hadn't heard the stories, he'd have known the second Jack smiled at him. Jack had laid him groundwork, given him the first scene, and now it was up to him to decide how the act would end. Three strikes and you're out, or would he take that step and ask for it?

It was cruel in a way only Jack could be, tantalizing and yet so, so evil. Jack wouldn't be the one to make the decision, it would be all Ianto, but Ianto could never forget that Jack wanted him, how Jack's lips felt against his, Jack's eyes on the back of his head.

But it was up to him now, Jack having made his final statement that night in the shooting range, waiting for the jury's verdict. And there was so much more to it that just whether he wanted Jack.

That wasn't in question. His entire body wanted Jack, burned for him, screamed for him every time Jack not-so-accidentally brushed against him or laid a hand on his shoulder.

There was Lisa to consider, too. It wouldn't be the first time in their relationship either of them cheated. It would be the first time since they'd said they loved each other.

And then there were Jack's eyes, his ravenous, wild eyes, always on Ianto, watching him, curious, waiting, and the only way to get them off him and off Lisa would be to assuage his curiosity.

Give Jack what he'd almost promised when he took the job.

And good _God, _Ianto wanted to.

Their fourth kiss was on Christmas Eve under a sprig of mistletoe. Tosh had hung it up surreptitiously, hoping to steal a kiss from Owen most likely, but they were all gone now, leaving only eggnog and wrapping paper to be cleared up. Ianto bumped into Jack just as he was leaving with the last of the recycling, and they were under a doorway with mistletoe above them.

"Tradition," Jack grinned, but he wasn't going to make the first move. He'd made his statement.

"Oh, bloody hell," Ianto muttered and kissed Jack, hard, pushed him back against the doorframe and just went for it, all the uncertainty and desperation and all the sheer lust he could muster in that one kiss.

Jack's hands were on him now, one around his neck, pulling him closer, the other pulling his shirt out of his trousers to touch the skin underneath.

At the first touch of the blunt ends of Jack's fingers against the soft skin of his belly, Ianto knew that it had to happen, soon.

He groaned against Jack's lips, walked Jack back to his desk till Jack was leaning back against it.

"Ianto," Jack gasped out between desperate kisses (five, six, seven, ten…), "Are you sure?"

Ianto growled, cleared the desk so he could push Jack flat on his back over it.

Jack's pupil's were wide and blown with want, his breath coming out in pants, wild grin on his face as Ianto nipped and licked at his neck, opened his shirts to get at his chest. "Tell me you have supplies somewhere around here," Ianto got out between licks at his nipple.

"_Oh, _god, drawer, over there," Jack said, sounding like he was running a marathon.

Within seconds, Ianto had a finger up Jack's arse, and fuck if this wasn't what he'd been waiting for, the captain all flushed and panting under him as Ianto took him.

Jack had been waiting too, judging by his moans and whimpers of satisfaction as his back bowed of the table in an effort to get Ianto deeper inside him, till Ianto leaned in closer and took his lips in a fierce kiss (eleven) as he pushed inside Jack.

It was so good, so tight, so unutterably perfect despite the million and one thoughts running through the background of Ianto's mind that he wasn't sure how long he'd be able to last, so he just went ahead with the 'fuck Jack blind' part of the proceedings.

Jack approved, repeatedly, vocally, as thrust into him over and over again, till he reached down between them, grabbed his own cock and brought himself off over both of them, loudly.

The clenching and tightening, the unbearable heat of Jack's body, the moan of his name, that was all Ianto still needed before he, too, was gone, coming hard inside Jack.

"Wow," Jack said after a while. "So worth the wait."

-

There were a lot of kisses after that. Ianto gave up on documenting all of them and only went with the ones that meant something, which bumped them back down to four.

Jack was very pleased with the new arrangement, it seemed. He certainly gave up on trying to figure Ianto out, as Ianto had half expected he would.

Like Ianto had wanted him to.

There was no logical reason for Jack's sudden lack of attention to get under his skin as much as did, but Ianto had long since given up on logic. It stung that all it took was a fuck to change Jack's regard of him so wholly, but, he kept reminding himself; it was good, as this way Jack wouldn't find Lisa…

But it was just Jack all over, fickle to the point of childishness, only wanting what he couldn't have. Ianto wasn't an object, and he wasn't in Torchwood to service Jack, and Jack knew all of this and so did Ianto but it still felt like he was. If it hadn't been for Lisa, Ianto would've gone round the bend sooner rather than later. But as his thing with Jack stretched on, his love for her grew, in a sick, twisted way, as if hurting her made it easier to love her because all the blame was on him.

He faded into the background; he was Jack's after-hours shag and he made the coffee and cleaned up and that was that.

Their fifth kiss that meant something remained only half-remembered by Ianto in the midst of blood and pain and Lisa's death.

-

The sixth kiss happened a week into Ianto's suspension.

He didn't know where he stood right then, given the whole horrible betrayal of Jack's trust thing, and the whole horrible demise of the love of Ianto's life thing.

Jack showed up just before midnight. He let himself in with a key he'd probably flirted out of Ianto's landlord. "Ianto?" he boomed out into the pleasant quiet of Ianto's dark flat.

"I'm here," Ianto said dully, not turning around. He wasn't sure he'd be that against being retconned back to infancy or even shot at close range. It might have even done him good to give his pain physical form rather than the haze of guilt and loss he felt himself floating in.

"How are you?" Jack asked, and maybe he understood a little, because he didn't turn on the lights.

Ianto didn't answer. The question was vaguely redundant. Also (not so vaguely), stupid.

"Listen," Jack said when it became evident Ianto was remaining silent, "We need to talk."

"Yes," Ianto sad.

"What you did was a breach of protocol," Jack said, with absolutely no tone in his voice.

"I know," Ianto said.

"I can't ignore that, even with your suspension."

"I know."

Jack came closer, his boots making far too much noise. He was probably tracking dirt in, too. "What do you think I should do?"

"Jack," Ianto said, his voice quiet but precise, at last daring to look at his boss and sometime lover. "You can do whatever you want. You can retcon me or kill me or make me do your laundry for the rest of my natural life. I don't care. Nothing you can do can make me feel more alone, more guilty and more like I wish I'd never been born."

Jack knelt down in front of Ianto and took Ianto's face between his hands. Ianto flinched at the touch, but Jack either didn't notice or didn't care. He kissed Ianto, softly, chastely, and then, mouth still so close to Ianto's lips that he could feel the words, said, "I forgive you."

And then he was gone, the sound of his boots on the floor and the door falling closed almost inaudible in the racket of Ianto's thoughts.

"Well," Ianto said, his lips strangely numb, "I suppose you could do that." And then all he felt was nauseous panic, an irrational need for his mother, and the pain that tore through him as sobs wracked his body so hard he thought he would never draw a proper breath.

-

Jack stopped by a few more times during Ianto's suspension. He didn't kiss Ianto again, though his presence did a little to ease the panic Ianto felt wrapped inside his loneliness. He was so used to having someone to think about, someone to touch and hold and talk to. The comfort Jack offered as simply another living, breathing human being overshadowed the uncomfortable mess of their situation.

When he bothered to think about it, Ianto knew what their next kiss, by default, would be a meaningful one. What they were now, how they were to relate to each other- these things were undefined. And Ianto knew there was one kiss missing, at least, to decide where they were. Even if the answer was 'nowhere', there was one moment of closure missing, a kiss goodbye.

They were only two scenes into the act, after all--Jack's opening and Ianto's betrayal--though Ianto didn't know how many scenes to the act or how many acts to the play.

Nor did he know what kind of play it was- comedy was out, but it was yet to be decided whether _Hamlet_ or _Romeo and Juliet_.

Their seventh kiss happened after the cannibals, after Jack had brought him home, helped him wash off the grime and the unclean horror Ianto could feel under his skin, and put him to bed.

"Stay with me," Ianto said, already almost gone in exhaustion and painkillers. "It gets so dark when I'm alone."

He later thought Jack must have known he wasn't talking about the cannibals. But it didn't matter, because Jack kissed him, less chaste than the last kiss, more like "_I'll be here for you_".

Ianto fell asleep in Jack's arms that night, and he wondered later whether their play might not be a tragedy after all.

-

Eight, eight, eight for the April Rainers, Henry the Eighth, an agony in eight fits, because there was something more there, wasn't there? Something left over that wasn't quite right yet.

It took Ianto a while to realize, took him days, weeks even, to see Jack's pattern again. _I'll be here for you_, that was his statement this time. I still want you and you're still there.

He was just starting over, like the whole thing had never actually happened before and ended in blood and death and mayhem.

Ianto almost dropped Jack's favourite coffee mug when he realized what was happening. Jack was just starting from step one--he'd made his position clear when he'd stayed with Ianto that night, and now he was waiting for Ianto's move. Jack was probably one of those people who thought about relationships in chess metaphors, Ianto thought sourly.

Although, really, this was good. It meant that it was up to Ianto now. Jack had put the decision in Ianto's hands, and it was up to him to define their relationship. Or perhaps 'define' was the wrong word. It wasn't like Jack went with labers. But Ianto was the one who was to decide the depth of their relationship.

Or so it seemed.

But Ianto had a long and proud tradition of overanalyzation and he was going to stick to it. He mulled it over in the quiet of his lonely flat one evening, empty wine glass spinning between his fingers.

The depth was Ianto's decision, because Jack didn't care. And that really wasn't depth, was it? The question was, after all, basically 'sex or not?' not, 'emotional intimacy or not?'. And Ianto was welcome to be emotionally intimate with Jack, but Jack would never be so with him. It couldn't, by nature, be a real romantic relationship, not the kind Ianto knew. It would be him leaning on Jack for the support he needed and both of them getting the sex and human contact their jobs made imperative.

And really, this was Torchwood. You took intimacy, of any kind, wherever you could get it.

Their eighth kiss was a mess of lips and hands and heat and lust up against Jack's office wall in the wake of Suzie's second death. It had been too long and they were too desperate to get any further than that, Ianto's legs hooked around Jack's waist as Jack fucked him against the wall, all ragged moans and hard thrusts till Ianto screamed out his orgasm and clenched around Jack so tightly Jack's own climax hit him so hard he couldn't move for minutes afterward.

Ianto was still breathing hard when Jack came back to himself. He immediately began peppering Ianto's neck and shoulders with kisses. "God, Ianto," he was saying, "so good…" His teeth sank into Ianto's shoulder and Ianto decided that as soon as they could make it downstairs, there was going to be a round two, preferably with the stopwatch.

He wanted Jack spread out and screaming for him, the sooner the better.

-

Nine kisses should have completed the triptych, really. Nine important ones--there were all manner of unimportant ones between eight and nine, no more than foreplay and fun.

The ninth one was after Jack came back from 1941, and at the time, Ianto knew nothing of the real Captain Jack Harkness. Tosh clued him in later with all the subtlety of a rampaging elephant, but in her defence, she didn't know about him and Jack.

It annoyed him a little that Jack could forge such an instantaneous connection with a stranger when he had Ianto to connect to right there. But the jealousy only ran skin deep--Ianto'd had one night stands since he and Jack had started their thing and Jack knew it. They weren't exclusive, just vaguely emotional.

So when Jack came up to him, desperation clear as daylight on his face, and kissed him with all the fervour he could muster, even without knowing about the real Captain Ianto knew to kiss him back with all the despair he himself had felt at the thought that Jack would never come back and he was doomed to lost everyone he cared about.

-

But then he did lose Jack.

Then Jack revealed his immortality and apparently found a way to cure it, and suddenly his cold, dead corpse was lying in the autopsy bay. It was like the play was suddenly over, gone, third scene never fully realized, carpet out from under Ianto's feet leaving him sprawling on his arse, Gwen's insistence that Jack was coming back nothing more than further mockery.

Until Jack came back. And their tenth kiss was right there in front of everyone, _god, you scared me _and _it's okay, I'm back. _

It just made Jack leaving that much worse, but it was still their tenth kiss that meant something.

--


	2. Chapter 2

**Title: **If Not Wisely

**Fandom/Pairing: **Torchwood, Jack/Ianto

**Rating: **NC-17

**Disclaimer: **BBC & RTD; Title is Joss Whedon's, random references are not mine either

**Summary: **Ianto keeps count. He hardly knows why--it's not like it matters, it's not like Jack cares, it's not like he wouldn't sound like a creepy stalker if he were to say something like, "I remember our seventeenth kiss. It was in the archives."

--

Intermission

The play wasn't done yet. Ianto didn't know how it was supposed to go on with one of the key figures missing, but it wasn't over. There was no closure, no final curtain call, and he didn't know how he was supposed to go on with that feeling of incompleteness haunting him. With Jack's shadow haunting him.

He felt like he was a little boy again, on the nights when he let the fear get the better of him, his sisters playing jump rope out back, high childish voices chanting, _Mabel, Mabel, set the table, just as fast as you are able, _to an obscure backdrop of absolute silence. The sun-warmed driveway, the jump rope going round and round, _Miss Susie went to heaven, the steamboat went to hello operator, please give me number nine, _the soft flick of the rope against the asphalt over and over, and Ianto standing there, half in the shadow the afternoon sun threw over the house, waiting for the right moment to join the game but never quite catching the rhythm of the jump rope, too scared to enter lest he hurt himself.

In some ways, Gwen was his biggest column for support. Not her wide-eyed, pitying looks, though, or her supportive wisdom, most of which sounded like it had been lifted directly out of Aldous Huxley. Don't worry, Ianto, things are awful now, but it'll all get better, you'll see. You deserve better, Ianto. It's just a matter of time. We're all here for you, we'll all work it out together. We'll all stick together, we'll all be happy. Everyone should be happy. We _are _happy, Ianto. If you just stop worrying so much, everything will be fine.

Was and will make me ill. I take a gramme and only am.

Like a sodding broken record. And that, more than anything, was what got him through. The feeling of vague superiority, and the consistent annoyance that was Gwen. It was rather cruel of him, all things considered, but if it stopped him from sliding away completely into a pit of despair, he'd take it. There was just something about her that rubbed him the wrong way, whether it was the overdone emotionality she was so proud of, or his own jealousy of her bond with Jack, or even the way she managed to be so bloody annoying and yet make it that much more difficult to dislike her, something got under his skin and just bothered him, like sand under your clothes after a day at the beach.

The petty annoyances of his everyday life, pretending Gwen held a candle to Jack as a leader, cleaning up Owen's messes, watching them ignore Tosh, they kept him grounded, kept him from drifting too far inside his own mind.

He bought himself a blank book, a fairly plain lined spiral notebook, unlike his diaries, and got out his old fountain pen. The first ten pages, he filled in his best writing, with things Jack had told him, 51st century pheromones and random knowledge about alien artifacts and historical events.

Then, he put other things in the list. _The first time Jack kissed me… _The strong stroke of the pen at the top of the letter 'J', the soft curve of the second stroke with a bit of a curl at the bottom, Jack's name on paper a sharp jab at the little bit of Ianto that was always screaming out how much it missed Jack.

"Was Jack…" Tosh asked, when Gwen and Owen were well out of earshot, "was Jack your first…man?"

"Yeah," Ianto said. "Doesn't really matter though, does it?"

"I guess not," Tosh said doubtfully. But she didn't agree, not really, because to her, the last thing she still had to cling to from the outside world was its rules and norms and categories, picking and choosing to which ones she herself wanted to adhere but recognizing them all as the way things were.

Rules and categories ended for Ianto the minute he stepped out of the archives.

-

"I don't know how you do it," Tosh said one night at a pub, unconsciously playing into Gwen's hands. "I don't think there's any other documented case of a Torchwood employee balancing the job with a relationship."

Gwen smiled merrily at the compliment- because, Ianto's id supplied nastily, Gwen was a People Person with Empathy, and as such she was good at forming Bonds and Relationships. The fact that Tosh had possibly meant it more in the sense of jealousy and statistical improbability for a happy outcome didn't seem to register.

"You know how it is," Gwen said patronizingly. "Love. Difficult, but worth it."

Ianto snorted, perhaps too audibly, but then, he'd already drunk more alcohol than was probably good for his judgment.

"Something the matter?" Gwen asked pointedly, superEmpathy senses alerted to any non-believers.

"Love," Ianto said, "is, in itself, the easiest thing in the world. There is no concept more universal, no emotion that comes to us more naturally. Loving someone is the simplest, purest pleasure in existence. It's everything else that's hard."

They were all looking at him now.

Ianto sighed. "I'm not drunk enough for this."

"Were you in love with Jack?" Owen asked bluntly.

"Define 'in love'."

"Hearts, flowers, butterflies…"

"Then, no."

Owen glared at him. "Well how would I need to define 'in love' for you to have been in love with Jack?"

Ianto shrugged. "I don't know that you could. I love him, but whatever relationship we had was a dead end waiting to happen."

Gwen had her eyes fixed on the table when he looked at her. Tosh excused herself to the bathroom.

Owen was giving him a strangely calculating look.

-

_The remedy is the experience.  
This is a dangerous liaison  
I say the comedy is that it's serious.  
This is a strange enough new play on words_

One of the most important features of Ianto's living room was the stereo, and the speakers. He still liked to sit in the dark of his flat at night and think, but he liked the sound of the music surrounding him. When Lisa…when the thing that used to be Lisa was still alive, he'd spent all his money keeping her that way. His first paycheck that hadn't gone into medicines and computers he spent on the stereo.

He leaned back against the couch cushions, took a drag from his cigarette.

_So shine the light on all of your friends  
When it all amounts to nothing in the end._

He smiled bitterly as the door opened to admit Owen. He'd really have to change his lock if he didn't want Team Torchwood always having the ability to traipse through his living room at their leisure. But then, he knew he wouldn't. He liked the security too much, the thought that there were at least three people out there who would actually notice if he was gone.

"Didn't know you smoked," Owen said.

"Only when life really blows," Ianto said. "Want one?"

"No can do. Risk our lives often enough without that shit."

"Never took you for one of those holier-than-thou types."

"I thought you'd be too anal to let something like nicotine near you."

"Bet you thought I'd sit around listening to fucking Wagner crying into a cup of Earl Grey," Ianto said without venom.

"Nah," Owen took a seat on the rocking chair Ianto's grandmum had left him. "I figured you more for the strumming-soulfully-on-his-violin-in-intense-pain type."

"I don't play the violin."

"Piano then."

Ianto blew out a stream of smoke. "You can't strum a piano. Or a violin particularly well, for that matter. And I play the guitar."

"Well there you go," Owen grinned. "You can strum that 'til your little emo heart explodes."

"Fuck off."

They had a male bond of some sort, it appeared, based on mutual annoyance at Gwen and apparently because both of their significant others had died in horrible, alien-related ways.

Owen hadn't needed to explain himself when he sat down next to Ianto and pushed a glass of Jack Daniels at him on what would have been his and Lisa's anniversary, Ianto had read the file. It was kind of nice, having a male friend. The last time he'd socialized had been in London.

Even if this was Owen.

He still hid the Jack diary whenever Owen was there. His feelings for Jack remained his business alone until he understood them himself.

Sometimes, he worried the only chance he had of ever understanding them was if Jack came back.

He dreamed of Jack, often.

Nightmares of the night the Lisa-monster died, Jack furious and growling and holding a gun to his head, dreams that left him barely enough time to get to the bathroom before his stomach rebelled.

Other dreams, of the nights when he'd needed Jack the most, the phantom feel of Jack's warm arms around him. Waking up alone was even worse after those dreams.

There were also the ones that had him sweating and shaking for very different reasons, the memory of the smooth expanses of Jack's skin as clear in his mind as if he still saw them every day, the painfully detailed recollection of Jack's muscles moving under him, over him, all around him, the haunting ghost of Jack's moans and whispers in the dark of his room…

Some nights, he didn't even dare sleep, because a night away from Jack had to be more restful than the emotional rollercoaster his dreams forced him through.

_Who am I, _his thoughts whispered when he let them do as they pleased, _Where am I? What am I?_

_I think I need you, _the Jack diary said. _I thought I just needed someone, but I think I may need you. _

_I miss everything about you, your coat, your smile, the way you didn't care about personal space or emotional boundaries. The way you liked to run your thumb up my jaw line when we kissed, the way you yawned when you were just waking up._

_The color of your eyes- I see it every time the sky is clear. Whenever I hear loud laughter, I think of you, and I see you when I close my eyes._

_I miss you, Jack. More than I ever thought I would. Come home._

He kept the diary locked in the third drawer of his desk after that bit came pouring out of the tip of his pen, apparently unsupervised by Ianto's brain.

-

"Have you been seeing anybody?" His mother asked over the phone, and Ianto grunted noncommittally, because he didn't have an answer that wouldn't be the wrong one.

Ianto found himself hungering for the feel of other people, for touch and closeness and security, and the last time he felt that had been when Lisa died.

It was all building up inside him, loneliness, desperation, anger, need, confusion, and it was only a matter of time before it his critical mass and meltdown commenced. And then…

And then, Jack came back.


	3. Chapter 3

**Title: **If Not Wisely

**Fandom/Pairing: **Torchwood, Jack/Ianto

**Rating: **NC-17

**Disclaimer: **BBC & RTD; Title is Joss Whedon's, random references are not mine either

**Summary: **Ianto keeps count. He hardly knows why--it's not like it matters, it's not like Jack cares, it's not like he wouldn't sound like a creepy stalker if he were to say something like, "I remember our seventeenth kiss. It was in the archives."

--

Act Two

Ianto had no idea what to think or feel. When Jack had still been there, he'd been plenty confused. But now there was Jack, cocky yet insecure, smiling shyly and asking Ianto out, and winking at him with blatant innuendo written all over his face.

Come to think of it, confusion was a vast understatement for what Ianto was feeling.

"You free tonight?" Jack asked, just a day after he'd come back.

"No…plans I'm aware of…" Ianto said, witty remark about Torchwood and his own lack of a life (and really, what plans would he have, could Jack actually imagine him of all people intending to go out clubbing or something?) fallen by the wayside at Jack's casual-yet-not tone and the fragile-hopeful look in his eyes.

"So…" Jack's finger traced a fold on Ianto's sleeve, "Tonight…dinner? Movie?"

"Jack?" Ianto asked quietly, trying not to ruin it, savoring the burning line Jack's hand left on his arm as he ran his hands up it.

"What?" Jack's voice a low grumble, hardly more than a vibration, from Jack's belly out his mouth to shiver down Ianto's spine.

"Why are you doing this?" He had to know. Before too much more happened.

"Because…" Jack sighed. The huff of his breathe was warm against Ianto's cheek. "Because I want you. As much of you as I can have. Just you. And I want to do it right."

"Only…" Ianto said, trying to find the right words for what he was thinking. "Jack. This can't be only for me. You have to want to…to do it right, too, or it isn't worth it."

"I want it," Jack said with conviction, and Ianto kissed him.

It was just supposed to be a brief peck, because he was happy, and because Jack was really there, but then…then it wasn't, then his tongue was in Jack's mouth and his hand was on Jack's arse and…

"Wait," Jack said breathlessly. "We're doing it right."

Ianto stared at him for a moment and then broke into a broad smile.

Jack really did want this.

-

True to his word, Jack took him out. There was dinner at a quaint Italian place- Jack had learned that much about the 21st century, you could never go wrong with quaint and Italian, so long as there were no allergies or extenuating circumstances (a friend of Ianto's at uni had had an irrational fear of pizza due to the gruesome way an uncle of his had died, but that was completely irrelevant, and Ianto was only lucky his mental babble hadn't broken out in full force yet and ruined the moment).

Ianto could feel his heart beating a bit too fast and his palms getting sweaty. He hadn't been on a date since Lisa, and he wasn't sure how this was supposed to work with Jack.

But then the waitress lit the candle on their table and Jack's fingers inched over to brush against his and they were a bit too warm and a bit clammy and Jack was smiling nervously and suddenly Ianto felt a lot more safe and relaxed.

Jack took Ianto to some brainless romantic comedy after dinner, which Ianto missed half of because his fingers were tangling with Jack's again and Jack's eyes kept sliding over to him and neither of them could stop smiling.

Jack would have dropped him off at home like a perfect gentleman if Ianto hadn't realized what he was doing. The statement thing again, minus the mind games and dominance, _I want you and I'll wait for you _was what he was saying, and Ianto decided he was nipping this sort of behavior in the bud this time round.

"Jack," he said carefully, slowly, "are you coming upstairs?"

"I want it to be your decision," Jack said blandly, staring at the steering wheel like it held the answer to life, the universe and everything.

"And I want both of us to decide," Ianto said.

Jack looked over at him, and in the next second they were moving toward each other slowly, inexorably, falling into a kiss both and neither of them had instigated, sweet and short and so full of emotion. Number twelve.

-

The thirteenth kiss followed the twelfth by no more than seconds, the flash of Ianto's blue eyes sparkling at Jack with happiness and want before they were all over each other, lips and tongues and teeth and hands and both of them whispering, "God, I missed you," at the same time.

They were up the stairs and in Ianto's flat in two minutes, despite the overwhelming urge to slam each other against walls and kiss each other's brains out. As it was, the second Ianto's door was closed behind them, Jack was on his knees, pulling at Ianto's belt like a boy with a model-train-shaped package on Christmas morning.

"Uh, Jack," Ianto heard his voice say, breathy in a way he only remembered hearing when Jack was nearby.

Jack moaned, rubbed his cheek against Ianto's cock in a strangely arousing way, buried his nose in Ianto's pubic hair and inhaled his scent before swallowing Ianto all the way down his throat and _fuck _Jack's fucking 51st century lack of a gag reflex, if only it didn't feel so overwhelmingly _good. _

Ianto knew the back of his head was hitting the door too hard, he knew he was moaning and whimpering and letting his fingers tangle in Jack's hair, but the only thing he was truly aware of was Jack's mouth on him, Jack's tongue doing that thing, Jack's moans vibrating around him until his balls drew up and he came, hard, in Jack's mouth.

But that was apparently just the warm-up. Next thing Ianto knew, Jack was dragging him to the bedroom by the lapels of his coat, kicking off their shoes and loosening Ianto's tie and letting his own braces drop and Ianto's fingers were fumbling with Jack's buttons and his belt.

By the time the bed was in sight, Jack was so desperate he ripped Ianto's shirt off before pushing him down on his back.

"Jack-" Ianto started, but Jack was having none of it, grabbing for the lube and straddling Ianto.

"You know I had to jerk off before we went out?" Jack said, breath coming out unevenly as he slicked up his fingers.

Ianto shook his head silently.

"Well, I did. I was hard the second I saw you this morning, I couldn't have gone out with you like that. God, Ianto, Missed you so much…" A hitch in his breath and a moan as he started preparing himself, head thrown back, and the visual hit Ianto like a sledgehammer as his recovery time improved exponentially.

"Jack," Ianto said again, more of a moan this time.

"I can- ah- I could smell your aftershave," Jack said, "drove me crazy, you were right there and you smelled so good and you're gorgeous and you're _alive _again, oh," he sank down on Ianto's cock, sweat beading on his forehead and chest, and if Ianto's brain hadn't been so far offline that he'd probably need to call Tosh to fix the wireless LAN, he'd have thought that last comment was odd.

As it was, all Ianto could think to do was let the moans and gasps pour out of his throat and hope they did what he was feeling justice, grasp Jack by the hips and assist as best he could in the proceedings. Jack was moaning over him, completely detached from…everything, it seemed, but the two of them, but this most intimate dance of passion and need.

"Ianto," Jack moaned out, a little bit broken, and that did it for Ianto, he flipped Jack over onto his back and fucked him as long and hard and deep as he possible could, Jack moaning and writhing, lost in sensation so beautifully he'd have brought gods to their knees.

"Now," Ianto ground out, "come now, Jack, please, now…"

And he slammed in again and Jack screamed out his orgasm, clenched so tight around Ianto he had to kiss Jack hard and fast and sloppy, because if he didn't hold on to something his own climax would have made him drift away completely.

Jack didn't stop kissing him even when they were both sated, his arms creeping up to wrap around Ianto's neck and hold him close as they kissed.

Jack cuddled up to him after they'd separated, both of them almost asleep. Ianto's last coherent thought was '_fourteen_'.

-

"…loved people I never would have known if I'd just…stayed where I was."

Jack's eyes, blue and expectant, and he wouldn't change that for the world, Ianto's sudden need to feel Jack, taste him, feel the contours of his cheek and jaw under his hands, feel Jack's calluses against his own skin.

Fifteen.

-

There were other kisses, Ianto eventually realized. Alternate scenes. Additions to the whole that made it strangely deeper.

There was a way Jack would sometimes kiss him, he'd run a hand through Ianto's hair, cup his face in the other large, capable hand and press his lips to Ianto's forehead in a way that made Ianto feel like he was at home, like he was safe and cared for in a way he hadn't been since…well, it was a long time ago, that was all Ianto knew. Probably around the time his grandmother had still baked oatmeal cookies for him every second Saturday and he'd still thought his Father knew everything.

Sometimes, though, when Jack was particularly happy, with Ianto or the world at large, it didn't seem to matter, he'd grab Ianto by the waist and reel him in for a bear hug before pressing a sloppy kiss to his cheek, forcing Ianto to glare sternly just to hide his internal giggling.

After a bit of thought, he wrote them down in the Jack diary as separates, not related to the ever-growing list of kisses.

There was a sixteenth one, sometime past midnight, looking out over Cardiff bay. "Wha…why?" Ianto asked somewhat unclearly afterwards, most likely due to the lack of oxygen in his brain.

"Because," Jack said, grinning his little-boy grin.

Seventeen: Gwen was gone, talking to Rhys presumably, having gotten what approximated official permit to talk to him about Torchwood. Ianto was sulking in the archives, not that he'd admit it. Jack had a big heart, he knew there was more than enough space for the whole world in there, but his affection for Gwen had a way of making Ianto feel…unspecial.

"There you are," Jack said, coming at him with the force of a natural disaster, slamming into the wall and pressing their lips together harshly. "Don't you dare scare me like you did today."

And the Gwen situation fled completely from Ianto's mind.

As for number eighteen, it was Ianto who instigated that one, just after Martha's arrival, nothing more than a hot tangle of tongues, just to reassure Ianto that Jack really was his, inasmuch as Jack would ever be anyone's.

-

Ianto didn't have all that much time to himself these days, and most of it was spent asleep or waiting for something (usually Jack or Torchwood).

The time for brooding was definitely passed. HE still recorded everything in the Jack diary, though, every touch that might have been important, every look that meant more than '_let's go fuck now_'. And, of course, the kisses.

He didn't really know what or where he and Jack were, beyond '_us_' and '_here_'. Occasionally, Jack would confide something, a little tidbit of information no one else knew, secrets that Ianto guarded as jealously to his chest as Myfanwy did her favorite chew toy. And much as Ianto knew Jack wasn't the type to enjoy being possessed, he couldn't help wanting the selfish satisfaction of knowing Jack was _his._

He was almost glad his friendship with Owen was drifting so badly, because one evening found him sitting on his sofa, fingering the strings of his guitar to match Alison Krauss's singing, enhanced and enlarged in the quiet of Ianto's flat, and there was no way Owen wouldn't have teased him for that.

_Who would sell their soul for love?_

_Or waste one tear on compromise?_

_Should be easy enough_

_To know a heartache in disguise_

Those first lines were what made the song live for Ianto. Because that was what he and Jack were, after all, a heartache in disguise, a disaster waiting to happen.

Of course Jack had to walk in on him, using the key he'd almost definitely gotten in some illegal way.

"Didn't know you played," Jack said.

Ianto glanced over, too far into his second beer of the night to be surprised about Jack's presence. He bit down the instinctive answer – _"didn't know you cared"_ – and said, "Never asked", instead.

Jack wandered over to sit next to him. "I don't like it when you get like this."

"Thoughtful?"

"Yeah. A lot of your thoughts seem to be kinda depressing."

Ianto was just trying to come up with a way to say, "No, really? Do tell", slap Jack on the upside of his head and yell "Do you not remember my job or our relationship status?" all at once when Jack leaned over and kissed him.

It dawned on Ianto that these days, almost every kiss meant something.

Beyond the rather obvious ones, like '_good morning_', '_good night_', '_hello_' and '_goodbye_', almost every other kiss seemed to mean something, too. Even the ones that were all about sex suddenly meant '_I want _you' and not '_sex! Yay!_'

Some days, when things seemed really bad, it was even '_I need you_'.

Ianto found himself documenting every single kiss they shared, because each one was Jack, and each one was him, and they were all important, all wonderful, and Ianto didn't ever want to forget a single one.

The twenty-eighth one was one that deserved more attention, though. A peck to thank Ianto for coffee and remind him that Jack was there merited a sentence; some kisses deserved whole pages.

It had been a long day, and Jack was still in full Captain mode, mysterious, sexy and aggravating.

"Oh, would you just come off your high horse," Ianto found himself saying as Jack gave him that bloody superior _Captain_-Jack-Harkness look.

"What did I do?" Jack asked in bewilderment. The cocky tone was still there though. Ianto could here it. It vexed him. Jack was leaning against the staircase that led up to his office, waiting for Ianto, hips jutting out, hands in pockets.

"That!" Ianto said, gesturing at him.

"Can't help my sex appeal," Jack said lasciviously, lips wet and tempting.

"Argh!" Ianto said, pushing himself a foot or two away from Jack. "That! Stop doing it."

Jack straightened, eyebrows drawing together. "Ianto? What's up?"

"It's just always bloody you, isn't it?" Ianto said. He could feel his face and neck flushing with frustration. "With the sex appeal and the mystery."

"And…this is bad," Jack clarified.

"Yes, it's bloody bad, Jack, it's your fucking attitude all over again, '_oh, worship me, puny mortals, for my century kicks yours in the arse_!'"

"I never-"

"No, you never, but it always sounds like you do! Like this here," he gestured expansively towards the darkened Hub, "is all just temporary, like you've seen and done so much better."

"Ianto," Jack said gently.

"I mean, it's like you have some complex," Ianto said, aware that there was a babble gland somewhere and he had to stop letting it do its thing, "always want more. You want Gwen but you'll never have her, you wanted the Doctor till you got him, hell, you wanted _me _till you got me…"

"Ianto!" Jack grasped him by the jaw, forcing him to stop talking. "I still want you, I'll always want you. You're mine."

"Yours?" Ianto asked.

"Mine."

And then Ianto had Jack pushed up against a wall and was kissing his brains out of his ears. "Yours," he was saying between kisses, "yes, for as long as you want me."

"Always want you," Jack was saying back, his lips catching on Ianto's cheek, his neck, his collarbone. "Don't deserve you."

"Other way around," Ianto tried to say, but Jack wasn't having any of it and took Ianto's lips in another harsh kiss.

"Huh," Owen said from the blueish shadows surrounding the ratty couch. "It really isn't like that with you and Jack, is it?"

-

Despite Jack's clarification that day, Gwen's wedding did nothing to make Ianto feel particularly good about himself.

He wasn't even sure why he came back to the Hub, it seemed like an exercise in masochism, but there he was, checking the Rift predictor and pretending he wasn't just waiting for Jack to show his face.

"Rift waits for no man, I see," Jack said. "Not that day or night really matters."

"_Where there's hardly no day,_" Ianto sang softly under his breath, _"Nor hardly no night, there's things half in shadow and halfway in light._"

"That's…morbid, if appropriate," Jack said.

"I'm in a morbid mood."

"Wanna talk about it?"

"What is there to talk about? You want Gwen and I'm having issues dealing."

"I wish you wouldn't do that."

"Do what?"

"Get all angry and then draw in on yourself."

"There's not much you can do about it, though, is there," Ianto said quietly. "You want her, you'll always want her, and there will be others you'll want and I'll just stay right here, falling more in love with you ever day, getting older and dying while you stay exactly the same."

"Ianto…that…you…" Jack seemed lost for words for the first time since Ianto had met him.

Ianto decided to postpone the celebration, though. "What are we doing, Jack? This thing between us- it can never actually end well. You're immortal and I'm unlikely to see my forties, I'm into…monogamy and in love with you and you're…not, and…"

He shuddered, and Jack drew him close in a hug. "Dumb as this may sound, I'm into you, Ianto, and that's not changing anytime soon. Just because I find it…easy to love people doesn't mean I will ever do anything to hurt you, and Ianto?" He forced Ianto to look him in the eye. "I do love you."

The kiss that followed wasn't one Ianto could easily describe, but he underlined "Kiss thirty-eight" in bright red.

It didn't quite seem to do it justice.

-

There was one particular kiss that stuck in Ianto's memory, during Gwen's honeymoon, kiss forty-six. It was a good kiss, as kisses went, nothing to write home about as kisses with Jack went, but it still made Ianto feel giddy to think about.

There had been an alien slime incident, followed directly by the words "Slightly acidic", and suffice it to say that Ianto's shirt was no longer among them.

Jack was thrilled with the development, no surprises there, but Ianto wasn't entirely certain he was comfortable with the way Tosh was looking at his chest.

The car ride was somewhat silent, although Ianto couldn't quite identify whether that was nothing-to-talk-about silent or staring-at-Ianto's-chest silent.

When they got back to the Hub, Owen decided to not help things by joining in with the staring.

"Either," Ianto said, hoping he was enunciating very clearly, "One of you is going to explain, or you will all stop staring at me. And for God's sake, Jack, get me a shirt."

"Sorry, Ianto," Tosh said, blushing. "It's just that you…well…"

"Hickeys," Owen said helpfully, with no little amusement.

Ianto looked down, and, indeed, there was a trail of hickeys up his chest. "Jack," he growled.

"It's not like I _knew _you were going to have to take off your shirt," Jack defended himself. "But, now that I mention it, really liking the whole concept."

"Jack," Ianto said again, a bit more helpless and his cheeks a bit redder.

Jack kissed him sweetly, on the lips, right there in front of Tosh and Owen. "You're cute when you're embarrassed. I'll go get that shirt."

Ianto took a moment to bask before turning back to Owen. "Do not say a word," he said.

Owen threw up his arms in a helpless gesture. "Even if I had any, it would just be too easy, mate."

-

Betrayal was a side effect of their relationship. Betrayal was a side effect of bloody Torchwood. Betrayal was something that happened too fucking often, Lisa and Mary and Diane and now fucking Flat Holm.

Jack let himself into Ianto's apartment late at night. Ianto had come to take Jack's key as a matter of course. He wasn't entirely sure why it bothered him that much; it didn't bother him that Owen, Tosh and Gwen all had keys. He supposed he'd just have preferred it if he could have given Jack the key himself.

"Jack," he said. Sheryl Crow was singing this time, her soft voice more soothing that his own.

_Come to me now  
And lay your hands over me  
Even if it's a lie  
Say it will be alright  
And I shall believe_

"Where do you get this music?" Jack asked.

"Lisa's sister used to send mixed tapes," Ianto said. "I kept them."

"Oh," Jack said.

There was a silence, but for _Please say honestly you won't give up on me and I shall believe._

"I'm sorry," they both said at the same time, and then both smiled.

"Doesn't really matter," Jack said. "That's on the job. And we're off right now."

"It matters anyway, and you know it," Ianto said.

Jack shrugged. "I found this in your desk the other night." He held up the Jack diary, and Ianto's lips twitched in a self-deprecating smile.

"It was really interesting," Jack continued, slight edge of teasing, only not really.

"I imagine so," Ianto said.

"Ianto," Jack said in his careful voice, "I love you. I've told you that. And granted, I can guarantee fuck-all, but I'm not about to leave you."

"But love is easy, Jack," Ianto said. "Love is so easy, because you can't control it, nothing is ever your fault, it's the rest of the world and actually making it fucking work that makes me scared."

"You know there's only one way to figure out if we can do it, though," Jack said. "Although I for one think we can. And the only way we'll ever find out is if we stop screwing each other over."

"What do you mean?" Ianto said. "I thought you liked the screwing bits best."

"Well, yes. But I meant more along the lines of, I stop making you guess all the time and you…" he stroked Ianto's cheek. "You, Ianto, stop counting."

_But, _a voice in Ianto protested, _How will I understand then? How will I analyze and document if I can't count?_

Only then, the music abruptly switched to Gloria Estefan, and Jack was grinning and deciding that apparently they did need to _come on shake your body, baby, do the conga, I know you can't control yourself any longer, _complete with lewd and exaggerated hip thrusts, and Ianto was laughing and kissing Jack, and he realized that he hadn't even noticed the Jack diary had been missing the last few days, hadn't even realized there were at least a dozen kisses he hadn't documented.

Realized he had no idea how many kisses they were at.

Realized he would only know how the play would end if he saw it all the way through.

He was remarkably okay with that.

THE END

---


	4. Timeline and References

**Timeline for If Not Wisely**

Just to clarify when and where things are.

Kiss #0: Warehouse scene in Fragments

Kiss #1: The day after that.

Kiss #2: Undefined brief period after #1, at most a week.

Kiss #3: Undefined after #2, most likely around two weeks or so.

Kiss #4: Christmas before Gwen arrived, the one Tosh references in Countrycide as the night she kissed Owen.

Kiss #5: Cyberwoman. Nuff said.

Kiss #6: Some time during Ianto's suspension, so between Cyberwoman and Small Worlds

Kiss #7: After Countrycide

Kiss #8: After They Keep Killing Suzie

Kiss #9: After Captain Jack Harkness

Kiss #10: During End of Days

Intermission: While Jack is away, obviously, between S1 and S2

Kisses #11-#14: A day after Kiss Kiss Bang Bang

Kiss #15: To the Last Man

Kiss #16: Between TtLM and Meat

Kiss #17: After Meat

Kiss #18: Behind the scenes during Reset

Kiss #19: Unspecified, before Dead Man Walking

Kisses #20-#27: Also unspecified, but during the first half of S2

Kiss #28: After A Day in the Death

Kiss #38: After Something Borrowed

Kiss #46: Between Something Borrowed and From Out of the Rain

And the last kiss in the fic happens just after Adrift.

**References in If Not Wisely**

I use a lot of strange metaphors and random references in If Not Wisely. It's something to do with the way I'm trying to get into Ianto's brain- the human tendency to connect things at random or have particular triggers for rhymes or references…

So anyway, if you're at all interested, here's a list of the stuff I referenced.

**If Not Wisely**

The title itself actually belongs to Joss Whedon. It turns up in the Season 5 Episode of Buffy "Crush"- Buffy accuses Spike of being incapable of love, due to not having a soul, and Drusilla says, "Oh, we can, you know. We can love quite well... if not wisely."

As with so many remarks on Buffy, it struck me as rather poignant.

**1999**

Little side note of interest here- I figure, since Alex and the others died at the very end of 1999, Jack probably wouldn't have updated the tourist office since then. Let's face it, he's pretty incapable when it comes to bureaucracy.

"**Reginald fucking Jeeves"**

Reasonably certain everyone has heard of Jeeves and Wooster. If not, shame on you. Go inform yourself.

**Eight for the April Rainers**

_I'll sing you twelve, __oh_

_Green grow the rushes, __oh_

_What are your twelve, oh__?_

_Twelve for the twelve Apostles_

_Eleven for the eleven who went to heaven,_

_Ten for the ten commandments,_

_Nine for the nine bright shiners,_

_Eight for the April Rainers__,_

_Seven for the seven stars in the sky,_

_Six for the six proud walkers,_

_Five for the symbols at your door,_

_Four for the Gospel makers,_

_Three, three, the rivals,_

_Two, two, the lily-white boys,_

_Clothèd all in green, __oh_

_One is one and all alone_

_And evermore shall be_ _so._

I figure Ianto to have a fairly large stock of useless common knowledge.

**Henry the Eighth**

English King, lots of wives, introduced the C of E, only on this list for the sake of completion, because who hasn't heard of him?

**An Agony in Eight Fits**

Lewis Carroll's very long poem, The Hunting of the Snark, is subtitled An Agony in Eight Fits.

_They sought it with thimbles, they sought it with care,_

_They pursued it with forks and hope_

_They threatened its life with a railway share,_

_They charmed it with smiles and soap._

Lewis Carroll is magnificent.

**Mabel, Mabel, Set the Table**

Ah, Jump rope rhymes….

_Mabel, Mabel, set the table _

_Just as fast as you are able_

_Don't forget the SALT, PEPPER, VINEGAR, MUSTARD, _

**Miss Susie**

One of my very favourite children's rhymes.

_Miss Susie had a steamboat_

_The steamboat had a bell_

_Miss Susie went to heaven_

_The steamboat went to _

_Hello operator, please give me number nine_

_And if you disconnect me, I'll kick you from_

_Behind the refrigerator there was a piece of glass_

_Miss Susie sat upon it and cut her little_

_Ask me no more questions,_

_Tell me no more lies_

_The boys are in the bathroom _

_Zipping up their_

_Flies are in the meadow_

_The bees are in the park_

_Miss Susie and her boyfriend_

_Are kissing in the_

_Dark is like a movie_

_A movie's like a show_

_A show is like a TV screen and that is all_

_I know I know my ma_

_I know I know my pa_

_I know I know my sister with the 80 acre alligator bra_

It is very, very silly. I know. I used to love these things. The Miss Susie theme has a few variations, there are also some that are in the same rhythm but with different words.

**Aldous Huxley**

Yeah, okay, that reference kinda drags on. Aldous Huxley wrote Brave New World, one of those creepy "Ooh, look how badly society will turn out" novels. There's this thing called hypnopaedia that brainwashes all the babies, and they spend the rest of their lives only saying and paraphrasing what they were taught. Among other things, "Was and will make me ill, I take a gramme and only am," which refers to Soma, the drug everyone takes to stay happy. Lenina, one of the main characters of the book, tends to say that and other completely useless things whenever life gets rough.

**The Remedy**

Sung by Jason Mraz.

.com/watch?v=5cM7g3GyeFw

**Life, the Universe and Everything**

Well, no duh, Douglas Adams. Although I think Jack is doomed to disappointment in this bit. Even if the steering wheel could talk, two-digit numbers aren't going to help him any more than it did the rest of the world ;)

**Alison Krauss**

Song is "That kind of love"

.com/watch?v=z5ow0XOp_WI

**Where there's hardly no day**

_Where there's hardly no day_

_Nor hardly no night_

_T__here's things half in shadow _

_And halfway in light_

Right. This. You will find this in Chim Chim Cheree from the immortal musical, Mary Poppins.

**I shall Believe**

Sung by Sheryl Crow

.com/watch?v=EW3Y3BtKqPs

(Er, yes, vid is not actually in a fandom I know. Couldn't find a decent one that was. Also, it's eleven thirty and I'm really tired…)

**Gloria Estefan**

…singing .com/watch?v=b4A50EHwCjY

What can I say? I wanted a positive note to end things on…


End file.
